Christianity has NOTHING like the same concept. Everything we Catholics are expected to believe is spelled out in the 20-30 second creed we recite every Sunday. There is NOTHING that’s kept secret until we’ve invested years of time.
I agree with Balance. I think Scientology is perceived as being so different because it so relatively young as religions go. I believe religions go through … growth stages, for lack of a better term, though if they don’t last maybe it would be more accurate to call them death stages.
Whichever, many religions have gone through stages of paranoia and protectionism, and used secrecy and (shall we say) underhanded tactics to control their flocks. The Catholic church could have people killed or imprisoned for heresy. The bible used to be a secret – that is, people were discouraged from having a bible and reading it because they were told they needed a priest as an intermediary between them and their God. The system was powerful and corrupt, and that surely pissed off Martin Luther.
My main point is that the Catholic church did the same things, but it was long before our lifetimes, and it was eventually forced to change. If their old tactics were never challenged, they’d still be doing the same shit today.
I’m always amused when I see some TV program about a so-called “cult”, and almost always there’s commentary from a representative of a “mainstream” religion – a minister or priest or rabbi. Every one of them would kill to have a flock as loyal and obedient and generous with their money and time as cult members are. But their centuries of cultural baggage have made that virtually impossible.
I found it interesting that the current Scientology leader is upsetting members so much they’re leaving. The two top lawyers, the one who were successfully attacking people who criticized Scientology, left because of him.
The most disturbing part of the article was the brief mention that the leader’s father had recently “escaped” from one of their compounds.
My meaning in post 2 above was that we accept the crazy religions and their practices that we have today, since they began so long ago, before humans really had a knowledge of science or the world around them.
What shocks me is Scientology’s ability to take hold in an age where we do have science and we do have the tools and knowledge to explain life and the world around us.
Again, from what I know, Scientology is absolutely absurd, as though LRH was trying to create something completely off the wall to test the gullibility of people. Yet it still took hold.
To be clear I didn’t mean a problem like “didn’t give me the dose of anti depressant I wanted” or “billed me £10 more than I was expecting”. I meant a serious problem like being detained against my will on unfounded suspicion of mental illness. You may consider calling a Christian group, or Christian-funded group if you were raped I bet.
The Scientologists run an anti-psychaitry group called the Citizens’ Committee on Human Rights that is ***extremely ***aggressive, and no doubt well connected. My enemy’s enemy is my friend, and all that…
@Twickster that was on topic, I see you ignored the person calling me an idiot, good moderating as usual.
OP here - just wondering if people commenting here have read the two links in my OP about Travolta and Cruise?
We can debate Scientology til the cows come home (and I have a personal horror story of a friend who was conned into joining this cult, but several of us helped her get out), but I was more interested in learning how they treat/lassoed in the celebrities to keep their image. Apparently the celebrity angle isn’t all that interesting to others.
I read the two links; the most interesting thing to me is that neither excerpt touched on the gay rumors about either actor. I’m not sure what conclusion to draw; are those rumors not true, did the author choose not to go there, or what?
Well, there is this quote:
“The Church hierarchy was desperately concerned that details about the private matters of their most valuable member would be revealed; at the same time, the hierarchy was prepared to use those details against him. Bill Franks, the Church’s former executive director, told Time magazine that in Franks’ opinion, the Church had Travolta trapped. At one point, the star sought assurance from Franks that his private confessions wouldn’t be used against him. In truth, intelligence officers inside the Church had already been directed to gather material – called a Dead Agent pack – that would be used against Travolta if he turned.”
That does imply there might be something that Travolta might not like to have made public - although I am sure you could spin this subtle blackmail however you want. Assuming the Gay rumors are true, the blurb above does explain a lot.
Regarding Cruise, there was this:
“In 2004 Miscavige assigned a team to help Cruise in his search for a girlfriend. The search came up with an aspiring actress Nazanin Boniadi, a 25-year-old Iranian born, London-raised woman whose mother was also a Scientologist. She was given intensive auditing and security checks by the Church and flown to New York and Telluride in late 2007 for elaborate dates with Cruise.”
Seriously - Tom Cruise needs help finding a girlfriend?! This good-looking, wildly popular actor, with tons of money needs help scoring chicks, eh? Right. Like 98% of all wannabe actresses in Hollywood wouldn’t fall all over him in a heartbeat? Sounds a tad fishy to me. (BTW, I do know more of this back story, but let’s just leave it at face value and ponder the concept of auditioning appropriate Scientologists to become his beau.)
No I wouldn’t. If I have two enemies who also happen to be enemies with each other, then we just form an enemy triangle and be done with it.
I would definitely not want to get mixed up with Scientologists no matter what.
I see where you are coming from, but there are hundreds of people (e.g. survivors of the Chelmsford Private Hosptial deep sleep therapy) who are very pleased indeed they had a Scientology front group to speak on their behalf.
Put another way, I support a palestinian state - and I also support the right of somalialand to be recognised.
Would much rather have a small team from mossad on my side than the entire resources of the somalialand secret service though…
It has not gained traction. It is not growing. There are AT MOST, 50,000 active members worldwide, and that number is likely dropping now that everyone has seen South Park. The cult is in a death spiral of prominent defections and bad publicity.
OP, I read your two links - I’ve been curiously following the Tom Cruise connection to scientology for quite a while.
I had a friend who became interested in Scientology years ago while in college. He went through one of their auditing sessions. He didn’t commit to anything that day and the relentless hounding began. They drove him crazy for a while… No matter how bluntly or how many times he told them NO.
After he told me about it, I became extremely curious as to how anyone could become involved. The more I read, the crazier it sounded. Especially their treatment of anyone who dared speak against them or who tried to get out .
I found a very interesting web site that I still visit often to this day. Ex-members post there and some of their stories are definitely wild. Some of them interacted with Travolta and Cruise at different points while still involved with scientology. They have some very interesting stories.
http://www.forum.exscn.net/forum.php?
They have a section called Scientology Celebrities…